‘Why I’m a bad mom’
IAM A bad person. I am a horrible woman and an even worse mother.
I don’t know who I am and what I stand for. I am setting a horrible example for my children. Why?
I wear a dot every day and a red dot even though I am Christian and my father a pastor.
I wear a sari to all funerals, weddings and ceremonies because I believe it shows the greatest respect.
I attend all religious functions I am invited to and even eat with them. I also say Namaste and Vannakam when I meet my elders.
But that’s still not the worst. What I did was so vile it called for tons of admonishment.
I did the worst thing ever. I allowed my son to go to mosque with his best friend dressed in Muslim attire.
I should be shot or maybe crucified.
The number of insults I have received from people of all religions never ceases to amaze me.
One man even stopped my son and I at our favourite grocery store to first chastise me and then ask him about mosque and what he did there.
My son’s reply: “I did the same thing I do in church. I prayed.”
“But how could you allow him to dress like a Muslim?” the man asked me.
Before I could respond, my son did: “My daddy taught me that God deserves the highest respect and that we should always dress up for God when we go to church, so I went to mosque and had to dress up for God there, too.”
Then man retorted: “But they are Muslim.”
My son looked at me: “Mum, didn’t you say that God is one and no one prays with a bad intention because God is love?” “Yes I did.” So he turned to the man and said: “Well, I love God and I love my friend, so I prayed with him.”
As the man huffed and puffed and walked away, a deep sadness came over me.
Here was a man who cheated on his wife, and then abandoned his pregnant mistress, telling me I didn’t know who I was and was setting a bad example for my children because I don’t know what I stand for. Really?
Does he, and everyone else who criticises me for wearing a dot, understand the pain of having to bury a spouse and have those little symbols like my dot and wedding ring forcefully removed because I was no longer allowed to wear it?
I didn’t have a husband anymore, but now I do and for me it’s a symbol of such amazing love.
Do they understand that wearing a sari does not reflect God but the respect I have for the function I am at?
Should I wear jeans or, better still, hot pants?
When my granny wants to turn salt for me because she believes it would keep me safe from evil, should I tell her that act of love is not accepted?
When people who are senior to me put their hands together to greet me with love, should I shake their hands instead?
Do they understand the meaning of tolerance, respect, humility, honesty, kindness, faith, non-discrimination and, ultimately, love? Am I a bad mother because the foundation I have built for my son is based on those principles?
I recently saw a post on Facebook from one of my Hindu friends, which asked if it was okay to like other posts on religions other than our own. Seriously? Every day I see people divide and rule and hate, based on rules they attribute to their religion.
Wars have become common-place. Yet we claim to fight to be accepted as one people and then choose to be separated based on how we pray, how we dress when we pray, where we pray and what symbols we use without even understanding the significance.
Is adultery more acceptable? Is lying better? Is stealing better? Should I teach my son how to judge people based on insincere gestures of superficiality?
Do I need to show my son that his best friend doesn’t deserve love because he doesn’t have the same religion when they actually have the same value system?
They both respect and love each other enough to accept all things about each other, so do I tell them that that kind of esteem for each other is wrong?
Have we really become a society that has forgotten about the basis of our faith, which is love, because we choose instead to build walls of hate?
Have we forgotten how to be kind in love, humble in love, tolerant in love, accepting in love and respectful in love?
If so, then I am the worst mother in the world.
I love the Jimmy Cliff song We All Are One.
Some of the song lyrics are: “We all are one, we are the same person. I’ll be you, you’ll be me. No matter where we are born, we are human beings, the same chemistry, where emotions and feelings, all correspond in love – compatible.
“You can’t get around it no matter how hard you try. You better believe it.
“And if you should find out, that you are no different than I then reply, we all are one, we are the same person. I’ll be you, you’ll be me. The only difference I can see is in the conscience and the shade of our skin. It doesn’t matter, we laugh, and we chatter, we smile, we all live.
“And the feelings that make all those faces always renew, so true, and would you believe that I have all those same feelings too, the same as you.
“Look at the children; they’re having fun, with no regards to why. They all look different but deep inside, their feelings of love they don’t hide. We all are one, we are the same person. I’ll be you. You be me.”
At the end of it all, when all is said and done, we need to stand for truth and love and equality.
You choose life.